not-quite-wild

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Salvador Dali, Two Dancers, 1949

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Turns out there *are* things that would make me think twice about giving someone plants.

“I tried to keep it happy, but didn’t have the experience/conditions/some mystery fixable thing.” No big deal. We can try again. And again. As long as you want to try.

“I ripped out this plant (elder) and threw it in the woods when I moved because the landlord *might* rent to a family with kids who *might* eat the fruit and *might* get sick (sick enough to *maybe* take action against…[me/landlord, wasn’t clear to me]?).”WTAF? We might need to reconsider this plant relationship.

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Behind the scenes of my knit stop motion animation! Hope you enjoy 🐑💛

(Music: Daystar - Little bunny / https://youtu.be/qn5-caUy2xc)

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So much color and tone variation just in the simple and humble domestic shorthair black kitty…

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@bogglebabbles

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Having just spent some time with the parent who did most of my raising, some things about my relationship with “nature” and wildness suddenly make a lot more sense.

(And also some things about my relationship to fear)

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One Year

2025, block prints on hand dyed cotton

i finally wrapped up this year long project. i started HRT on december 8th, 2023. i went into it initially scared to death of needles and the concept of self injection. I decided to carve a stamp of my testosterone vial, and add a stamp to fabric after every shot as a sort of gold star “good job!” achievement. after a month, the fear was gone but i continued stamping. this quilt shows the number of shots I took across a 1 year period.

quilting always speaks to me as a trans person. a needle bringing together layers upon layers of fabric, making something new out of something preexisting, the slight discomfort of a finger prick (ow!) that’s easily forgotten when you stand back and see the repetition of stitches has made something you’re excited to see. my art quilts are usually about nature, but I always see myself in them :)

this quilt was initially conceptualized for a way for me to express pain and frustration with the healthcare system, with a physician who had promised me access to HRT when I was ready, only to massively walk her knowledge back when I was ready to start the process. hurtling through what seemed like an endless cycle of referrals, insurance calls, years long waitlists, medication backorders and more, i initially planned on stamping a vial for every week i missed a shot in frustration. i am glad i finally gained access to the miracle that is HRT, but at the same time I feel immense sadness, pain, and fear, both personally and for the rest of the trans community who are unsure of what our access to this miracle will look like in the near future.

i am holding tight to my trans siblings right now. i love you!

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I wasn’t too happy with my last whale painting so I painted a new one in SAI instead of Procreate. (SAI will always be my fav art program) I want to show the stars glowing in the stomach more clearly🌟 SAI doesn’t have a timelapse feature so I did a work around but the resolution is kinda low. Does anyone know a better way? The high res hours long recordings will be DMed on my Patreon on Nov5

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Correction that the artist is Kenichi Nakaya (I tried googling Kenichi Nayaka and got anime)

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I love plants who hate water. Hydrophobic leaves, my beloved! It rains on them and the leaves all say Nope! Hate that! Stop touching me!

It rained in the night, and everything is still spangled with droplets.

Bonus; tiny green katydid.

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"God never gives you more than you can handle" is survivorship bias. People who got more than they could handle are dead.

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I spotted a reply to one of my posts:

And my knee-jerk response was "no, you should hear my friends talk about their lives--"

And it made me remember something.

Back in high school, my IB class did a lock-in-- where the group of students gets locked into one part of the school overnight on a weekend-- and after junk food and video games lost their appeal, we got to talking.

Only I didn't really know anything about almost any of them. They were all friendly enough, but I kept to myself for the most part, so we didn't have much to talk about once standard small talk ran out.

So I asked one of the other people sitting with me: "what's your story?"

Your life story.

And he told me. Sixteen years or so condensed into maybe a half hour. And it was the most fascinating life I could have imagined: the places he'd been, the things he'd done, the experiences that defined him. It boggled my mind.

When he finished and turned the question around to me, I thought mine sounded really boring in comparison, but he listened open-mouthed to the entire thing. Other kids were gathering around us by now, listening in. And when I finished mine, I turned to another one of them and asked the question to them.

And just like before, my mind was blown. A completely different life, completely different focal points, defining experiences, goals the likes of which were deserving of an anime. And the same happened with the next person we asked, and the next.

By the time each one of us had finished telling their story, it was time to go home for the morning. The video games had been abandoned hours ago. None of us had slept. We were too caught up in each other's lives.

All of which is to say:

Thank you. I do lead a very interesting life.

So do you.

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Red Fox Cub

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Just found out my favorite employee at my favorite vacation spot is still there.

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Sending love to everyone who is just... tired. Life is a lot, and sometimes the answer to it all is to just be still and silent for a while. Give yourself space and grace. Whether it’s decision fatigue, anxiety fatigue, information fatigue, routine fatigue, getting life back together fatigue, career fatigue, social fatigue, financial fatigue, or physical fatigue—take a moment to breathe and recharge. You deserve it.

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ough

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do you think i'll ever get to a place in my life where i'm actually a good person and i don't keep getting bombarded with people telling me all the ways i'm doing things wrong. will i ever stop feeling like i'm faking being good and i'm actually a despicable person deep down inside like there's something rotten and irremovable in the very core of me. i feel sick

As a recovering self-hater I have a few things that have been helping

Truly shitty people are typically, in my experience, not chronically preoccupied with anxieties that they need to be better. It seems to be the 100% rock-solid certainty that everything you ever do is selfless that you need to watch out for.

Motive only matters in court. If you donate 30 hours a week to charity so you can tell yourself you're a good person or you donate that same time because you genuinely enjoy helping people, that's still 30 hours, imo. At that point the argument is more philosophical than anything. The help is still happening.

Nobody can read your mind. You can be the bitterest, cattiest, most judgemental and mean-spirited motherfucker alive, but as long as you don't let your feelings hurt others, you're golden. In fact, I personally think you should get extra credit for effort. Swimming upriver ain't easy

None of us are selfless by nature. That's okay. We all crave attention, and validation, and comfort, and reward. That self-interest is a survival skill. It's not going anywhere and I don't think it should. The key is moderation, self control, and consideration for others.

The loudest voice in your head probably isn't yours. Survivors of all kinds of abuse- and all abuse is psychological to varying extremes- often keep their critic's narrative in their head. That voice that says you're awful- is that something you'd say to someone else? No? Then try to figure out who said it to you. They were probably an asshole. The voice that answers it it probably your own. Listen to that one

No, you will not feel like this forever. It's a pain in the ass, but dedicating time and thought into ignoring that inner critic and elevating your positive impulses is effective.

Some things I've done myself that seem to help:

Do some research on cognitive behavioral therapy and cognitive reprogramming. These are easier to exercise with a therapist bit once you figure out the patterns to follow you can do them on your own, too.

When you do something good, write it down for yourself. Keep a dated journal, either on paper or in your phone. When you find yourself in a pit of self-liatging, you can go back and remind yourself of all the good you've done. If this is hard, try listing 3 good things you did at the end of each day. Anything from picking up a scrap of litter to running a food drive.

Long post, but really, the best thing I can say is this:

Aything that takes effort is worth celebrating, even if that effort is minimal or that task is considered small.

At the end of the day, "bare minimum" isn't working a full-time job and eating three meals a day, cleaning up after yourself and doing it with a smile- bare minimum is nothing. Bare minimum is laying on the floor motionless for 24 hours and filter-feeding like a sea sponge. And if even that's difficult for you, then it's not your bare minimum, is it?

There's a lot of cruel, inconsiderate, uncaring people in the world, only out for themselves at the expense of others, and even if you think you're one of them, giving a shit about doing better still puts you a mile ahead of most.

Try not to worry too terribly. If you're thinking about it, you're probably doing fine👍